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sonofstdavid's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
In this narratively divergent novel, Williams draws out the contrast of man's two opposing orientations: Salem vs Gomorrah. The plot is meandering and veiled with a mist of overlapping realities. Contrasting with the bland suburban setting, the two main characters are swept up by, and exposed to the mind-melting supernatural realities underpinning the world. However while one experiences the time bending beauty of Salem's self sacrifice, the other unfortunately has become so united to Gomorrah's selfishness that he is far down the road to hell.
But be warned, as good as this book is, it's trippy as Hell!
But be warned, as good as this book is, it's trippy as Hell!
berksandcaicos's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
sorinahiggins's review against another edition
5.0
Follow my Charles Williams blog, The Oddest Inkling, for more context on this book and (later) a summary and other thoughts. William Blake once wrote: "For every thing that lives is Holy"; and yet, Christ made division between subjects of the kingdom vs. slaves to the darkness when He said: "He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left" (Matthew 25:33). In Descent into Hell, Charles Williams sees beyond that fundamental opposition, which is a byproduct of temporal reality, into the deeper truth where those contradictory ends of a rope join and are one.
As he usually does, Williams creates several threads and traces them throughout this story. The first thread is that of "The Play." A great poet, Peter Stanhope, has just finished his latest play, and his home community is about to begin its first rehearsals.
The second thread is that of a doppleganger: a ghostly or spiritual double. This is the double of a young lady named Pauline. It is her secret terror, the unbearable sickening agony that drives her into houses, into company, out of solitude, for fear she will meet it and have to look it in the face. But, Mercifully, her fear is taken from her so that she can face it. By means of The Doctrine of Substitution or The Way of Exchange, Stanhope offers to take her fear and carry it for her.
The third thread is a pretentious little actress named Adela and an historian named Wentworth. Wentworth has a crush on Adela and fantasizes about her, and gradually trains his spirit to feed itself on its fantasies to the exclusion of reality. Wentworth creates a succubus out of his own imagination and establishes an erotic relationship with it. He retreats more and more into his own lurid, sordid realm of bodily and mental perversion, climbing down down down a rope towards a Hell of his own making.
Similarly, an unnamed workman, worn out with a life of ill treatment, commits suicide by hanging himself with a rope very like the one down which Wentworth is climbing in his mind. It just so happens that the man hangs himself from Wentworth's house -- before it is built. The dead man, in the past, and Wentworth, in his sullied mind, stand elbow to elbow unaware of each other.
There is another character from the past occupying the same Hill. He is Pauline's ancestor, and he was burnt to death at the stake by Bloody Mary some 400 years earlier. Pauline hears about his martyrdom, and Stanhope suggests that she can carry her ancestor's fear for him.
Descent into Hell really is CW's best book. The pacing of the book is admirable, with cycles of intensity alternating with passages of vague visionary stasis and tranquil revelations unfolding. Run out & read it, now!
As he usually does, Williams creates several threads and traces them throughout this story. The first thread is that of "The Play." A great poet, Peter Stanhope, has just finished his latest play, and his home community is about to begin its first rehearsals.
The second thread is that of a doppleganger: a ghostly or spiritual double. This is the double of a young lady named Pauline. It is her secret terror, the unbearable sickening agony that drives her into houses, into company, out of solitude, for fear she will meet it and have to look it in the face. But, Mercifully, her fear is taken from her so that she can face it. By means of The Doctrine of Substitution or The Way of Exchange, Stanhope offers to take her fear and carry it for her.
The third thread is a pretentious little actress named Adela and an historian named Wentworth. Wentworth has a crush on Adela and fantasizes about her, and gradually trains his spirit to feed itself on its fantasies to the exclusion of reality. Wentworth creates a succubus out of his own imagination and establishes an erotic relationship with it. He retreats more and more into his own lurid, sordid realm of bodily and mental perversion, climbing down down down a rope towards a Hell of his own making.
Similarly, an unnamed workman, worn out with a life of ill treatment, commits suicide by hanging himself with a rope very like the one down which Wentworth is climbing in his mind. It just so happens that the man hangs himself from Wentworth's house -- before it is built. The dead man, in the past, and Wentworth, in his sullied mind, stand elbow to elbow unaware of each other.
There is another character from the past occupying the same Hill. He is Pauline's ancestor, and he was burnt to death at the stake by Bloody Mary some 400 years earlier. Pauline hears about his martyrdom, and Stanhope suggests that she can carry her ancestor's fear for him.
Descent into Hell really is CW's best book. The pacing of the book is admirable, with cycles of intensity alternating with passages of vague visionary stasis and tranquil revelations unfolding. Run out & read it, now!
kennethoftexas's review against another edition
5.0
Here, in a terrifying, gorgeous narrative masterpiece, Williams anticipates what I believe to be the looming crisis of this century (which is already budding, in part).
In a story about magic and spirituality, Williams describes a man's descent into a masturbatory, hallucinated false world, which Williams equates with hell. The theological point made in this book is that hell is an orientation, an inward turning, and heaven is a confrontation with truth, reality, and other people.
When I read this, years ago, I couldn't help but be reminded of people I know who had sunken into porn or video game addictions at the cost of their relationships with their families. Far worse, I suspect, lies ahead, and Descent into Hell is more timely now than ever.
In a story about magic and spirituality, Williams describes a man's descent into a masturbatory, hallucinated false world, which Williams equates with hell. The theological point made in this book is that hell is an orientation, an inward turning, and heaven is a confrontation with truth, reality, and other people.
When I read this, years ago, I couldn't help but be reminded of people I know who had sunken into porn or video game addictions at the cost of their relationships with their families. Far worse, I suspect, lies ahead, and Descent into Hell is more timely now than ever.
colorfulleo92's review against another edition
5.0
To say that I fully grasped the story, would be a lie. It's heavily inspired by Christianity, a subject I know little about. But I think it's a lesser known master piece that I did very much enjoy reading even tough I didn't get everything. It's a book I'll go back to in the future and maybe I'll change my views on it heavily as I think it's a love it or hate it kind of read.
rschmidt7's review against another edition
4.0
Loved this, although I feel I only understood about half of what I read, and it was very slow-going to read through this relatively short bookâBut I'm so glad I stuck with it. A memorable, if challenging, reading experience and a spiritual vision worthy of pondering long after you close the book.
newishpuritan's review against another edition
4.0
It's too peculiar and convoluted to give five stars to, but its effect on me and its likely influence is certainly five stars.
hstapp's review against another edition
5.0
This is a really good book, I have been disappointed with the last few Charles Williams boos I have read, but this one is right in that area that made me a fan. This book is a suspense filled ride through the alternate dimension contained within all humanity. I enjoy the book immensely, but it does have it's problems. Our first character is not a part of the main story, he is tangential. He is important, but tangential. This can throw us off, especially when he brings him back, and we are trying to figure out who he is. Is it him? Is it Wentworth? It looks like it says he is here, but no here it clearly says it isn't Wentworth. We eventually figure it out. These elements confuse us, but this is not by accident. We are meant to be confused Williams wants us to be confused, it adds to the suspense. I have one more novel to read, but this is probably Williams' best work. I still prefer Place of the Lion, but this is the second, Many Dimensions following. It is creative, suspenseful and highly interesting. Definitely a suggested read.
glendonrfrank's review against another edition
5.0
This was one of my favourite reads of my undergrad, and it was about time to return to it.
The Inklings are fascinating because they as an image and Lewis as a particular have been claimed by a lot of fundamentalist evangelicalism when more often than not, they were weird counter-cultural men who are difficult to put into clean boxes. None exemplify this more than Charles Williams, the bizarre mystic who is definitely hindered by the views of his time (see the unfortunate tangent he takes with Sodom before introducing his Gomorrah metaphor...) while still playing with radical ideas that shake the boundaries of the game. Descent into Hell is the centerpiece of this, one-part Passion Play, one-part manifesto, and one-part collapse of Dante and Milton into modernist stream-of-consciousness. There's almost an overwhelming number of things going on, as Williams flips through his central figures, building his metaphors, always mixing reality and hyperreality in a way that digs into the psychology of his cast.
Obviously, this is a book about two movements - one towards outward-facing love, and one towards inward-facing apathy. But it's the way Williams portrays it, the perfection in which he depicts inward tensions with such pinpoint accuracy. The intermingling of past, present, physical, and spiritual is used to get at the inner realities of human existence, the consuming circlings of anxiety, dread, self-doubt, etc. But while lesser writers like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker use similar tropes to peddle their visions of "spiritual warfare," creating cultures of fear and separation, Willaims' primary interest is connection. In Williams' worldview, love is a potent force, tying all people together and ultimately bringing about transformation. This, I think, is the idea that most struck me and my classmates - while our protagonist Pauline is often terrified of the strange forces around her, she eventually comes to learn the inherent goodness in these forces and finding, in turn, inherent goodness in herself; they are, after all, fundamentally the same thing. Just like in Chesterton, the terrifying ultimately becomes the familiar. Our fear gives way to recognition, which gives way to love. It is only in failing to love that we damn ourselves into the abyss of self.
Coming back to it some four years later feels something like a homecoming. Hitting upon this year among a year of learning about literary and feminist theory and coming into new friendships and rekindling old friendships, this felt like a central spark. The vision of a communal fortress of love was transformative for me. Williams' vision of substituted love is not complicated, but feels like a radically fresh expression of an old truth. And this is why Descent Into Hell sits in such a primal part of my imagination. The evangelicals want to claim the Inklings, and Peretti and Dekker feel like half-hearted imitations of what Williams is doing - but in centering their vision on their fear of the other instead of on radical love, they miss the entire point. In fact, they fall down the well of Wentworth. To fear is to Other, and to Other someone else is to Other yourself. But to love is open all the doors, to carry each other arm-and-arm and walk towards a radical new world.
The Inklings are fascinating because they as an image and Lewis as a particular have been claimed by a lot of fundamentalist evangelicalism when more often than not, they were weird counter-cultural men who are difficult to put into clean boxes. None exemplify this more than Charles Williams, the bizarre mystic who is definitely hindered by the views of his time (see the unfortunate tangent he takes with Sodom before introducing his Gomorrah metaphor...) while still playing with radical ideas that shake the boundaries of the game. Descent into Hell is the centerpiece of this, one-part Passion Play, one-part manifesto, and one-part collapse of Dante and Milton into modernist stream-of-consciousness. There's almost an overwhelming number of things going on, as Williams flips through his central figures, building his metaphors, always mixing reality and hyperreality in a way that digs into the psychology of his cast.
Obviously, this is a book about two movements - one towards outward-facing love, and one towards inward-facing apathy. But it's the way Williams portrays it, the perfection in which he depicts inward tensions with such pinpoint accuracy. The intermingling of past, present, physical, and spiritual is used to get at the inner realities of human existence, the consuming circlings of anxiety, dread, self-doubt, etc. But while lesser writers like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker use similar tropes to peddle their visions of "spiritual warfare," creating cultures of fear and separation, Willaims' primary interest is connection. In Williams' worldview, love is a potent force, tying all people together and ultimately bringing about transformation. This, I think, is the idea that most struck me and my classmates - while our protagonist Pauline is often terrified of the strange forces around her, she eventually comes to learn the inherent goodness in these forces and finding, in turn, inherent goodness in herself; they are, after all, fundamentally the same thing. Just like in Chesterton, the terrifying ultimately becomes the familiar. Our fear gives way to recognition, which gives way to love. It is only in failing to love that we damn ourselves into the abyss of self.
Coming back to it some four years later feels something like a homecoming. Hitting upon this year among a year of learning about literary and feminist theory and coming into new friendships and rekindling old friendships, this felt like a central spark. The vision of a communal fortress of love was transformative for me. Williams' vision of substituted love is not complicated, but feels like a radically fresh expression of an old truth. And this is why Descent Into Hell sits in such a primal part of my imagination. The evangelicals want to claim the Inklings, and Peretti and Dekker feel like half-hearted imitations of what Williams is doing - but in centering their vision on their fear of the other instead of on radical love, they miss the entire point. In fact, they fall down the well of Wentworth. To fear is to Other, and to Other someone else is to Other yourself. But to love is open all the doors, to carry each other arm-and-arm and walk towards a radical new world.
polyhy_14's review against another edition
3.0
There were moments of real beauty in this book. I just wish I hadn't had to wade through so much wordiness to get to them.